THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 13T 



estates, he found it *'hard to have any Hermetic 

 thoughts," and occupied his mind with anatomy 

 and confirming Harvey's discovery of the cir- 

 culation of the blood. A year later, he settled 

 at Oxford, where he arranged a laboratory and 

 had as assistant Robert Hooke. Meetings 

 were held alternately at Boyle's lodgings and 

 at John Wilkins's lodge at Wadham, and were 

 frequented by Seth Ward and Christopher 

 Wren and by many others. 



Stimulated by Otto von Guericke's contriv- 

 ance for exhausting air from a vessel, Boyle, 

 aided by Hooke, invented what was called the 

 "machina Boyliana," which comprised the es- 

 sentials of the air-pump of today. At this 

 time, Boyle busied himself with the weight, 

 with the pressure and with the elasticity of 

 air — the part it played in respiration and in 

 acoustics. Like Newton, he took a deep in- 

 terest in theology, and not only spent consid- 

 erable sums in translating the Bible into for- 

 eign tongues, but learnt Greek, Hebrew, 

 Syriac and Chaldee so that he might read it at 

 first hand. He was, indeed, a very notable 

 character. Suffering under continued ill- 



